HOT, SEXY, HAPPY AND HEALTHY MÉNAGE À TROIS

You want to boycott the cold and humidity that make you feel tight and withdrawn? Call on black pepper, jasmine and pink grapefruit essential oils in sesame oil with a touch of vitamin E oil for a savvy solution. 

This trio will perk Lady Kapha and Dame Vata like no other. Everyone around them will notice that they are up for the best pleasures life has to offer. Definitely can be worn under the sexiest red lamé dress for a sultry night out while making you healthier.

BOOOO, BOOOO: WHAT HAUNTS YOU?

On Hollowe’en, children play at being ghosts, pirates, witches, ghouls, clowns to play out all kinds of fearful to ridiculous aspects of the human psyche.

Some adults love to dress up too on that occasion, most often than not, expressing repressed aspects of themselves in some way or other to experience them and laugh at them. Others won’t even consider wearing a costume, so tight in their repression, fear or disdain. The dynamic of Hollowe’en is great to reveal aspects of what haunts us, what we judge, what we fear.

INNER AND OUTER BEAUTY: BALANCE AND SELF-CARE (FALL 2013 PROGRAM)

The Aroma Muses for the Arts workshops announced in the previous entry are only one part of Face to Grace’s calendar of activity. They're definitely for those who are seeking expansion and want to put on their wings. The core part of Face to Grace’s course program includes:

• Practical Awakening for those seeking help for sailing journeys regardless of weather
• Balance Your Emotions with Aromatherapy, both in English and French, offer tools when the tides of emotions are high.
• the 1-Year Biovedic Beauty Certification Program develops grace and flexibility, and provides countless tools on the journey of beauty.

All three include components on aromatherapy, ayurveda and much more.

AROMA MUSES FOR THE ARTS - A CALL TO BUDDING, AWAKENED AND FULL-FLEDGED ARTISTS

What is fearlessness for you? When and how does it come about? For most fearlessness is present when one is determined to go into the unknown or to meet a fear face to face. That could be in any area of life: relationships, self-inquiry, profession, creativity or exploring the world. It always is triggered by a need for freedom and expansion, from knowing that you can do more and be more fully who you truly are. The arts and aromatherapy provide a perfect platform to meet fears with curiosity and innocent fearlessness.

MOLD AND EMOTIONS: A DIRECT LINK

My visit to the coastal islands Saturna and Salt Spring Island, in British Columbia, continue to inspire me. The thing that struck me most, at least at first, was the incredible humid and rainy weather. But this type of weather was also awaiting here in Ottawa and in many other places in the world such as Germany, where the Danube is currently spreading out of its bed for hundreds of miles.

A voracious destroyer of life

Fascinating to see the strong forces
of growth and decay
at work in this park, close to Victoria.

In extreme kapha conditions, one of the most dangerous creature finds a haven:

TASTES, EMOTIONS AND AROMATHERAPY

Going back to old reference books often provides insights and inspiration doesn't it. As I was leafing through Dr. Frawley and Dr. Lad’s The Yoga of Herbs, a couple of paragraphs on tastes and emotions caught my attention.

“Emotions have a certain taste or flavor and affect the body according to their qualities. There are bitter emotions like grief, or astringent like fear

BEAUTY TIP - CHECK YOUR FACE FOR CLUES

Consider your face as a map on your journey to beauty. Pimples, wrinkles and other blemishes in various areas of the face indicate an area of depletion, stress, emotion and loss of balance of one element:

FOREHEAD: a loss of balance of the air (Vata) element; a discomfort or problem in the colon and/or can related to emotions of anxiety, fear and worry

NOSE AND CHEEKS: a loss of balance of the fire (Pitta) element; related to the small intestine and/or emotions of anger, jealousy and frustration

MOUTH, CHIN AND NECK: a loss of balance of the earth (Kapha) element; issue relates to the chest and stomach and/or to emotions of grief, depression and attachment.

Identify what is happening on you face and in your emotional life. See how this relates to the above.

Reviewing what you know about the elements and what you discovered about the emotions to which you gravitate most often, what will you do to bring back balance to your skin?

I FEEL GREAT BUT... STORIES THAT CAUSE PIMPLES

Yesterday, I had a booth at the Journée de la culture event in Embrun, Ontario, and as usual was offering free assessments. I had the opportunity to meet a women who gave me a topic for today’s blog. Her face was tight and serious, she had pimples in the lower part of her cheeks and her eyes were dull.  She asked what I could do to help her skin.

Given the location of her pimples, I surmised that the source was constipation and/or grief or depression. Her shallow breath and shoulders held high and very tight, as if defending from something, also struck me. She mentioned that she has constipation, is chronically depressed, and that people have been mean to her since childhood and keep putting her down. She repeating that story several times during the session.

EFFORTLESS EVOLUTION: THE GIFTS OF THE PRACTICAL AWAKENING and BALANCING YOUR EMOTIONS COURSES

Life changes can bring great joy, great stress and often both. Choosing a new career or partner, having a baby, losing a loved one or a job, having you life threatened by a serious illness, a natural disaster or criminals are great tests. How do you cope? Can you observe your thoughts and emotions, without freezing or reacting, to get a wider perspective of reality?  Allowing life to flow through you without judgment or chaotic emotions during quiet or challenging times  supports your evolution. The first thing to remember is that thoughts and emotions are not permanent. Only habitual patterns make you believe that they are. Learning new techniques and reflexes as well as upgrading how you feel about yourself and view the world can help you take control of them instead of letting them control you. Practical Awakening and Balancing Your Emotions with Aromatherapy are courses that help build your nervous, hormonal and immune systems. They bring you to a place where you can ground and create a distance between the judgments, fears, anger and other emotions that paralyze you and block your life force. The practices taught also help remove memories lodged in the cells of you physical body and from the chakras. Watch http://vimeo.com/43226631 for more comments on Practical Awakening and how effortlessly your personal evolution happens when you stop resisting the moment, when you stop trying to change yourself. The gift is the same for Balancing your emotions. Sitting to do the practice for 40 days settles the emotions regardless of what you are going through. It is that simple, so simple you may not notice at first. Then one day, you realize something shifted... Open the door to the pure creative potential of your life and celebrate the natural healing power available within you. Contact Samyukta at info@facetograce.com to sign up for these empowering classes.

AMAZING GIFTS HIDE UNDER 'BAD' EMOTIONS

What hides behind emotions? 

The paradoxes life and the human experience bring up don’t cease to amaze me. It seems as though the more I desire something, whether beauty, wholeness, connection or

PEOPLE WATCHING... ELEMENTS AT PLAY

New adepts of Ayurveda
at Encounters of Canada

Do you enjoy watching people or yourself? Consider Ayurveda as a starting point of your observations and you will see a new world unfolding in front of you. I recently had two ideal situations that provided unique vantage points to observe the impact of fire and the other elements in people and their interactions. The first one occurred during a workshop to a group of teenagers, the second one during the journey

to Kannur, India,

PANCHA KARMA IN KANNUR: A HOT EXPERIENCE

Thank you for opening this page today as I invite you on a journey of pancha karma, a fantastic way to clean your body, the temple of your soul.

Feeling great after pancha karma
and a henna treat.

A change of scene

Journeys have the power to

DEAR LAVENDER: HEALER, TEACHER AND FRIEND

Ageless, fragrant, powerful.

Little did I know when I first met you that you would become so important in my life. My grandmother had a sachet of your dried petals in a drawer to ward off the moths from the woolens in her drawer. I didn’t particularly like your smell at the time, and associated you with ‘old’ women. Either Grand-maman didn’t have the words to explain how valuable you are or I didn’t have the ears to listen.

EMOTIONS LIVE IN OUR CHAKRAS, IN BALANCE... OR NOT

One day this past spring Bhuvaneswari, my spiritual teacher, gave me an assignment: «Make emotions chakra creams.» That was the extent of her guidance. It took a while to get started. In retrospect, I realize I had all the knowledge, experience and tools to do it. Intuition, logic, creativity and staying grounded would do the rest.

Chakras and their needs

Chakras are energy centers in the shape of vortex of different sizes,  though not visible to the physical eye. They are considered as organs and, as such, need to be cleaned, moistened, toned and realigned back into shape. This can be done several ways, including with music, energy work, etc.